Dungeon-managing game Dungeons (which is definitely not a remake of Dungeon Keeper) has just received an new instalment. It’s called The Dark Lord, and there’s a demo of it here. Publisher Kalypso explain that for some reason the character is called Calypso: “Hone your evil skills as you play Calypso, the Dungeons Lord’s despicable ex-girlfriend, in three extensive tutorial levels before jumping into a single-player map from the game’s ‘Soul Survival’ mode. In Soul Survival, you play as the Dungeon Lord himself, as you race against the clock to steal soul energy from the hapless heroes who enter your cleverly crafted dungeons.”

I sunk 16 hours into the first one. It was constant herculean effort to try and like it and that ended in failure. The humour is puerile, voice acting grates on the nerves, but it’s the gameplay design and pacing that sets it back the most. That’s not even bringing the general overall bugginess into the mix.

Agreed. It is unequivocally a remake of Dungeon Keeper – anyone claiming otherwise has never played Dungeon Keeper. Is it a shot-for-shot remake? No, of course not, but it’s much more than “inspired by” or a “tribute to” the original.

And as my neighbors above have said, it is BORING. It was so boring that I had to buy a copy of DK2 off of GoG just to make sure that it wasn’t ME who had changed. I subsequently poured a couple dozen hours into DK2 without giving Dungeons another glance.

So when you say “is definitely not a remake of Dungeon Keeper” do you mean it is in fact a(n unofficial) remake of Dungeon Keeper, or that it fails terribly at attempting to be a remake of Dungeon Keeper?

The game absolutely makes reference to DK, and then attempts to do things in its own way, which is admirable.
It then throws a number of (in fairness) good ideas at you that are all so badly implemented that the overall experience molts inside your mouth and leaves a very bitter aftertaste, not unlike bile demon piss.

So what you’re saying DukeOFprunes, is that “Dungeons: The Dark Lord” is basically “Dungeon Keeper concept, made by someone else”, so you’re in charge of a dungeon, heroes come in, then everything else is slightly or strongly different from Dungeon Keeper, right ?

(and people are reporting poor implementations)

if that’s the case, it doesn’t sound like something I would buy, at least not at full prices :C

In DK you built a large number of rooms that attracted monsters who lived in your dungeon. Your job was to keep them happy, feed them, train them, and send them into battle to crush do-gooders. It’s simple and accessible.

In Dungeons you build two rooms (armory, library) that get looted by heroes, thus increasing their Happiness bar. You can place monster spawners, not to kill or defend from heroes, but to further increase their Happiness bar.
When their Happiness bars are maxed you lock them up until you own all their happy points, which you need to buy non-functional pretty decorations. It ends up feeling like you’re playing The Sims: Dungeon Of Happy Heroes.

How can they justify spitting out a full sequel only 9 months after the first, when it’s basically the same game? This sequel is a patch (trying to fix a shitty original game) and an expansion with new levels.

I recommend no one to purchase this game, even if they did managed to “fix” the game and make it actually fun, they do not deserve a full purchase price on what is really a patch/expansion.

It already annoyed me how insanely bad this game was when it came out and I knew what to expect- it was basically Evil Genius in Dungeon form, but they somehow managed to make it no fun. Thus this quick turnaround sequel is even more annoying.

The tragedy with Dungeons is that it *could* have been a great DM remake, but instead resorted to insanity-gripping mini squadrons of heroes who did all but ignore you while trying to fend off waves of overpowered baddies. It’s basically a tower defense type of game that looks amazingly like DM, but the similarities stop there.

once you realize that this game is basically just a double A tower defense game… well if you love tower defense games you might actually love this, if you like dungeon keeper just play dungeon keeper instead though… everyone needs to stop talking tragedy this game isn’t even in the same GENRE!~ it’s just been marketed a bit… it’s a really great DUNGEON themed tower defense game with depth and options for all those hardcore tower defense fans out there…